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Comment by showdeadtest | Hacker News Reader

To amplify this, while I appreciate the passion some people have for community health, there has been a pattern of bald-faced lying that is unsustainable and potentially counterproductive. I can see somebody going to the gym and not feeling bad about it for that reason alone.

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As most authoritarian-collectivist movements go, the "Stay the fuck home" crowd took no time at all in destroying all goodwill towards their worldview.

Had its tone been more educational and pleading instead of arrogant, shaming and outright threatening they could have avoided polarizing the conversation and creating a contrarian counter-movement that resists even sensible compromise.

Lives are at stake here, so the "Stay the fuck home" crowd, as you put it, has a right to express feelings that may be stronger than "educational and pleading."

I guess the over 1000 health professionals who said BLM protests are OK but everyone else "stay the fuck home" did not help make the case.

But that's precisely the problem. While you may think this way, someone else may not. So when you try to convince that person from an assumption that they agree with you on the importance of the premise, you fall flat.

People aren’t staying home, so it seems like that didn’t work.

You might feel the stakes are higher than other people, just like there are people who probably elevate issues like, say, gun control to a similar level of urgency. That's the whole basis for discourse in a society.

If it was truly that urgent I would hope the "stay home" crowd could act pragmatically by taking a more receptive tone. That's belied by a truly frightening undertone of violence that I see simmering underneath the messaging, e.g. "Can't we just throw all the anti-maskers in prison?"

People have a right to shout, but their interests would be better served if they didn't.

Lives are at stake for every single large scale event or decision. McDonalds changing the price of their fries, in either direction, has lives at stake.

If you can't calmly and dispassionately discuss "lives at stake" situations you have no business in any conversation of importance.

Interestingly. Many have been clamly and dispassionately discussing a "lives at stake" situation called Climate Change and there hasn't been much meaningful action.

Also, i find this rebuttal interesting. Why do humans have to be dispassionate? We are humans. Getting rid of the passion really seems dehumanising.

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